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Frustration

Tonight was my Mama Renew group. I almost missed it, as again I’d left asking for someone to sit Cameron until the very last minute. Luckily, my downstairs neighbour was available. Phew.

The thing is … I don’t want to sound down or negative, but I’m not getting much from the group this time around. Last time, the six months over the summer and fall, I got so much out of it. Each month I had something new to think about, to contemplate, and invariably felt like my view on some part of my life was either illuminated or changed. This session is just leaving me feeling blah.

I want to be careful. The last thing I want is for someone interested in Mama Renew to come across this and think that it’s not for them. I need to be clear: this is /me/, not Mama Renew. The woman who runs these meetings is nothing less than amazing, and I really have to give her credit for /trying/ to get me to look deeper. She knows what questions to ask. I just can’t come up with the answers right now.

The first session, the first six chapters of the book, fit in with my life right then. They were about self-nurturing, building a support network, taking the time to care for yourself, learning to prioritize and say ‘no’ when needed. It was what I needed.

This session has been more about the importance of creativity and spirituality, nurturing relationships. These topics just don’t resonate within me. They’re topics I have a hard time focusing on.

Part of it is that their definition is, to me, amorphous. How does one define creativity?

Part of it I’m certain is that two topics are areas I’ve actively avoided.

While I know I’m a creative person, and while I know that creativity doesn’t need to mean artistic talent, when I think of a creative person I think “Tasha,” my sister, not me. That, thanks to our difficult relationship (or lack thereof at this point), throws up huge walls made of ice-bricks carved from the deepest ice that yet remains in Antarctica. Then put in a moat of liquid nitrogen, and you’re getting the idea. Yes, one could argue that my writing is creative. Yes, you could (and I have) argue that my approach to science and research is creative. I’m a problem solver – you need to have a creative mind to do that. But the instant you slap the C word on there I freeze.

Spirituality? Yikes, there’s a concept that frankly I run from. I can discuss other people’s spirituality. I have my views on the world and society and community and how it all works, and I’m happy to discuss these views and learn those of other people. But has being a mother changed this? Honestly … not one whit.

The one topic so far that has grabbed my attention has been living life with a sense of adventure. Gee, wonder why? That idea was already swirling around in my head, taking shape. How to define adventure? How to introduce Cameron to it, how to offer him the opportunity to learn to love adventures?

I fully realize that where one has a rock-solid block, like I do with creativity and spirituality, the block is often obscuring depth. That this means there is a whole other amazing world there, right behind that icy wall, to explore. I have no doubt that if I do probe further, put a bit of effort in, truly and honestly work at it, I will learn much about myself and my views and come out the better for it.

Sense of adventure or no, those new worlds are going to have to wait. Because frankly I’m just barely making do with where I am right now, and I only have so much energy to allocate. Spirituality, creativity, and contemplating relationships and their depths are just going to have to wait.

For a decade or so.

I need to go back to those first few chapters and work on self-care and nurturing again, I think.

One of the things I love most about my experience with mama renew is the ways in which topics weave in and out. When I first did the good is good enough topic i came home proclaiming “this is so not an issue for me.” My husband looked at me as though I had gone mad and encouraged me to take another look. and another. and another.

After 3 years of working with that concept I’m finding that that “great depth” that you wrote of beyond my block.

Beautiful post. and yes, in the words of maria in the sound of music, “go back to the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start…” I’ve been through the topics 5 or 6 times now, and each time i see them in new ways.